Karen Tricot Steward

Content Development Director

As Content Development Director, Karen Tricot Steward oversees the creation of news and cultural programming and helps set standards and best practices. She manages content on our website and social media. Karen also coordinates the internship program and collaborates with journalism professors at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to teach students, helping fulfill public radio’s goal of serving the community by being a place of learning.

She started at KUAR in 2001 as a news reporter. She has also served as local host and news anchor for Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

For her news reporting, she has received several awards from the Arkansas Associated Press for stories on topics like the Little Rock mayoral race and Iraq War veterans in Arkansas. She also won a first place award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting. Karen has a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Ways to Connect

Chris Hickey and Karen Tricot Steward take a deep-dive into some of the top stories in Arkansas this week, including angry constituents at town hall meetings and a Supreme Court decision to strike down a local anti-discrimination law.

Plus: Why KUAR interim general manager Nathan Vandiver, once champion of a beard-growing contest, has reservations about entering again.

Sen. Tom Cotton faced an angry reception at a town hall forum in the Northwest Arkansas Ozarks. The crowd of 2,200 people filled the Springdale High School auditorium to capacity Wednesday to pepper the conservative Arkansas Republican with questions about everything from immigration and health care reform to President Donald Trump's ties to Russia.

On this week's podcast the KUAR news team digs into a few of the bigger issues facing the Arkansas Legislature, including guns on college campuses, a bathroom bill and its possible impact on tourism, and abortion restrictions that are advancing. We also talk about some non-legislative matters, including an effort to address crime in the state and details of this year's Johnny Cash Heritage Festival to be held this time in his boyhood hometown of Dyess.

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Chris Thyer, says the indictment of 41 convicted felons on federal charges shows that the Department of Justice’s Violence Reduction Network (VRN) has been an important tool in reducing crime.

Federal law says if you've purchased tax-free online, you need to pay a tax to the state. But, no one's really doing that. The problem: Arkansas relies heavily on sales tax to support essential government services.

When it comes to federal legislation requiring online merchants to collect sales tax, Republican U.S. Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas has long been one the more prominent GOP backers of such a measure.